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[tools-yak@collab] Re: turned on ExpandingWikiWords on my wikilog

To: tools-yak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John Sechrest <sechrest@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:24:04 -0700
Message-id: <200305132024.h4DKO4k15227@jas.peak.org>


"Peter P. Jones" <ppj@concept67.fsnet.co.uk> writes:    (01)

 % OK...having started the blaze I'll now fan the flames a bit more ;)
 % (My points are purely about Wiki words and not about the utility of 
 % wikis as information structures. Please allow me to ignore the 
 % positives for a moment.)    (02)

 % A series of opinions about Wiki words:
 % 1) MashedTogetherWords muck up information retrieval and natural 
 % language processing.    (03)

 I disagree. The MashedTogetherWords are the equivilent of German
 pulling a bunch of words together to name a concept.    (04)

 So it enhances natual language processing by making clear that
 this is a "named concept".    (05)



 % 2) How does the Wikiword auto-link process work for all those Asian 
 % languages that have no gaps between any of the words and no capital 
 % letters, like Chinese? Mashed wiki words are not internationalised.    (06)

 I don't do chinese, so I don't understand capitalization in chinese.
 but the concept still applies.     (07)

 % 3) For the purposes of solving the world's major problems spawning 
 % artificial concepts creates false positives more often than it is 
 % likely to generate a genuine insight (plus (1) & (2) - auto-
 % translation busts). It is not without reason that those philosophers 
 % that most folks agree talked sense in the last couple of millenia 
 % were pedantic about the use of language. How do you have an insight 
 % if you've fogged the picture so that objects within it are not 
 % distinguishable?    (08)

 You have to be careful about naming concepts. That is core to any
 of these points.     (09)



 % However, I'm willing to concede that, as Henry van Eyken so 
 % eloquently pointed out with a story about Native Indian discussions a 
 % while back, the positive insights that Tom Munnecke is searching for 
 % are about novel social interactions, and that in this sense the 
 % subliminal form precedes the detection of its consequences. 
 % Nevertheless, I maintain that on detection of that novelty it 
 % requires scrupulous analysis to reveal its full properties and true 
 % causes, hence traditional conceptual rigour would help at that point, 
 % imho.    (010)

 % So I suppose my point boils down to asking what Wikis are really for?
 % Saving the world or...?    (011)


 they are for helping to organized group thinking. And as such,
 you must have a way to "name concepts". We often don't do it well enough.
 Wiki's force you to do it.    (012)






 % Cheers,
 % -- 
 % Peter
 % 
 % -- 
 % This message is archived at:
 % 
 % 
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=tools-yak&i=3EC15422.2212.22B5AD@localhost    (013)

-----
John Sechrest          .         Helping people use
CTO PEAK -              .           computers and the Internet
Public Electronic         .            more effectively
Access to Knowledge,Inc       .                      
1600 SW Western, Suite 180       .            Internet: sechrest@peak.org
Corvallis Oregon 97333               .                  (541) 754-7325
                                            . http://www.peak.org/~sechrest    (014)

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